>> this is al jazeera america live from new york city. i'm tony harris with a look at today's top stories. aid is pouring into the philippines from around the world. the country's president said typhoon haiyan is believed to have killed between 2,000 to 2500 people. secretary of state john kerry said it would be a mistake to add more sanctions on iran days after leaders in geneva failed to agree on how to reduce iran's nuclear program. about 50,000 people have signed up for health insurance through state-run website since they went live last month according to a consulting term that tracks insurance data, and two new

reports suggest the number for the federal website is the same. the government signed off on the merger of american airlines and american aways. it would make it the largest carrier in the world. hawai'i senate passed a bill to allow gay marriage. now the bill is headed to governor neil abercrombie. "real money with ali velshi." >> the stock market is cooking with gas, and americans are piling into the kitchen to get a piece of the pie. we'll go in to see if we should load up. and raising the minimum wage could be picking up momentum.

what grease mean for workers and small businesses. and let the video game hiring begin. it may help you land your next job. this is "real money with ali velshi." >> this is "real money," and you are the most important part of the show. stock markets closed lower on tuesday, but please don't mistake being down for being out. the s&p 500 which mimics some of the stocks that you may have in your ha 401k. it is up 24% so far. and generally there is a gain that will pick up 6% or more. but the bull run goes back to the bottom of march 9, 2009, and more or less picked up all the

way since then. if you invested right there on march 9, 2009, it would be worth $2,611 just for your investment. i don't know about your taxes. but you wouldn't have invested back then because march 92011 feels opposite of what today feels like. nobody wants to invest like that back then. why buy high when you can buy low, this is the time to buy, seems like it many of you are piling in. the highest inflow since 2000 generally speaking mutual funds are marketing retailing investors. so there is a good way. they measure your appetite for this market. in fact, 45% of individual investors now say they're bullish on the stock market now four years and eight months in

this rally you're bullish, excellent. that's six points higher than the survey's long-term average. that makes sense because right now the stock market is the only game in town for individuals who want to build their wealth in this low interest rate environment. cds can' don't count, four years and eight months may sound like a long time, but history has given us longer bull runs. the one in the 1990s gaining 4000% before the tech bubble must early 2,000. still the average bull rally, is

five years which means this is running longer than most. does the stock market still have room to run or is it setting up for a big correction? jim lowell managing $726 billion, jim, good to see both of you, jim lowell, let me start with you. just because the market is up 25%, just because the market is up 161% since march of 2009, is that a reason for my viewers to be concerned about their investments? >> no, it's not. but if it's the only reason you're thinking of investing in this market is because it is up, i recommend that you step to the side and reconsider what you mean by investing an how you few yourself as an investor. the reality is peak markets, in trough market there is are

always key opportunities. the key is to figure out the find of managers, the track records that body well for these kinds of conditions. the reality is that the global market especially as you look at europe and the emerging markets, they have not been as robust as our market here at home. >> there are eight or more asset classes, ways to invest that, don't operate under similar conditions. and with the exception of 2008-2009 when everything did badly, there are place force your money. >> yes, that's always true, and the way i say to investors have an asset allocation model. a disciplined one. sit with your adviser. how much do you want in stocks, how much in fixed income in stocks. how much global, how much emerging, and rebalance towards that model. now would be a very good time to

do that because stocks are up so much. you have to look the underweig underweighted stocks and overweighted stocks and be disciplined, unemotional and balanced over time. >> jim lowell, let's say that someone had a portfolio that was supposed to be 70% in stocks. they'll seen that fixed income reduced to a smaller percentage. does it make sense for them to sell off and get back down to the position that they committed to being with, whether they had an adviser, maybe they figured it out by rea reading and studyg the rally? >> we see the rising environment going forward. which means that even the shorter duration bonds have greeting risk on the government and on the great side of the fence. you need to be adjustmentment thinking and the same is true on the equity side of the fence. there are areas in this market going forward. technology, consumer

discretionary needs. consumer staples, areas that i would want to avoid are financials i. i think knowns could be in harm's way. >> when you're saying technology, are you including these internet stocks, they're up in the s&p 500. >> yes, i absolutely am, especially on the networking side. if you look at the increasing demand not just for band weather but products that help from you amazon to say that there is great room for growth. the networking stocks have clear volatility to say healthcare stocks. look inside healthcare, i continue to like what i see from top to bottom whether we're talking about buy suitcals or

bio tech. jim, where do you think my viewers should be building? >> here's the mention i would say. ththe market is up, and stick wh quality. stick with multi nationals, good balance sheets, dividends, and expose. and to the debt side to the extent that you want to own bombs keep the maturity shorter, stick with quality, i guarantee that they'll do well over time. >> when there is a small cap, mid cap large cap, is there something that behaves a certain way in this economy where we're not growing terribly quickly. >> what has done typically well is the u.s. small cap because the u.s. economy has done better than europe and the emerging markets. that's changing a little bit

because europe is bottoming, and it looks like they have stop decelerating. you may not want to be all in u.s. small camp and diversify into some european stocks, and some emerging stocks that have lagged, especially u.s. small cap which are reasonbly highly valleyed. >> things that are not as well performing when the markets are low. >> you know what they say, always have fear when others have greed, and always have greed when others have fear. >> well, the justice department agreed tuesday to settle its fight with u.s. airways and american airlines to create the world's largest airline. the government sued to block the deal in how long arguing that the merger would reduce competition and increase fares for consumers. under the settlement the combined taylor would give up

landing and take off slots, and the two companies expect to complete the merger next month once the court has overseen the american airlines bankruptcy signed off. various studies blow holes in the notion that mergers are bad for consumers. airfares are up 2% over 1974 20. minimum wage could help workers but it could hurt businesses, too. and it's not just for couch potatoes. keep it here.

what happens when social media uncovers unheard, fascinating news stories? >> they share it on the stream. >> social media isn't an after-thought, it drives discussion across america. >> al jazeera america's social media community, on tv and online. >> this is your outlet for those conversations. >> post, upload and interact. >> every night share undiscovered stories. >> last week new jersey voters approved the state wage hike to, and president obama came out in support of recent legislation sponsored by congressional

democrats for a new federal minimum wage of $10.10 an hour. now >> the original minimum wage as if you decided that for inflation, minimum wage today would be $10 an $10.77. in 19 states you can see them there, and washington, d.c. have higher rates starting in 2014 new jersey and new york will as well. minimum wage supporters are paying close attention to the

small city of seatac south of seattle are a proposed $15 minimum wage for airport transportation and hospitality workers still hang in the balance. alan, good to see you. the count is going to be in. we think as early as 15 minutes from now. what's the latest? >> well, we're going to get an additional count in 15 minutes from now. but remember that washington state is a mail-in election state, so the ballots are still coming in. we have no solid figure for how many ballots need to be counted before this thing is decided. we do know that it's a very tight race. we know it's a razor-thin margin right now, we also know that this thing is almost certainly headed to a recount and has landed in federal court. there is going to be a legal battle over this. we're talking about a difference in this vote on proposition one of 44 votes at this point with a little more than 5,000 counted.

so we can assume that this thing will go right down to the wire and one side or the other will call for a recount. we don't know where we're going on this. a lot more votes to be counted. >> talk to me about the one side on this. small businesses are very concerned about what that type of a minimum wage is going to do to them. what is the sense--what's the opposition feel like? >> well, they're quite concerned. there is something that everybody needs to understand about this specific proposition, that is that it's not just about the minimum wage. written into it are other are requirements that businesses would have to follow in terms of sick pay, vacation pay, who they can offer full-time jobs to if they have to layoff part time works, that kind of thing. and some of the business versus sued saying it might not be legal under state and federal statutes to have those kinds of requirements put on businesses. they're also saying in that same complaint that this is something that is focused on the sea of

s--the city seatac, or the airport, which is run in seattle, not the entity of seatac. >> as always there is more to the story than appears. thank you very much. >> reporter: small business confidence has slid to a seven-month low. last month's survey was taken during the government shutdown. take a look at the results. small business optimism is down from september. that is the biggest drop in a year. business owners worried about sales, cut back on their hiring and capital spending plans. don is one of those business owners who is worried right now. he runs two motorsports dealerships and a retail store at the local mall. between the three he employees 30 workers. he joins me were one of his dealerships in indiana, don, good to see you, thank you for being with us. >> you bet, thank you for having me. >> the issue of an increase of

minimum age would only effect you at your retail store at the mall where you pay the minimum wage plus a commission for some workers? >> yes, as a matter of fact, we pay above minimum wage. but we also pay on top of the hourly wage we pay a commission or an incentive for sales. and that is a pretty healthy number in a lot of cases. so if in this matter wage from raised then we would have to look at that commission structure because maybe that would drive our wage costs beyond what would be acceptable and still be profitable. it could be--raising the minimum wage in our case in a lot of retail establishments could be counterproductive.

over all teammates may not earn any more money than they are now but they would have less incentives to produce sales. >> you have these great motorcycles behind you. some of them are bought by people with lots of money, but something that you would buy with your disposable income. in some ways if people around you earned more money you might sell more bikes. >> that's right. we're definitely a disposable income business. we saw that with the beginning of the recession in '09, and certainly in '09 and '10 when people's discretionary income went down. our business was drastically affected by that. >> what's your sense--do you have some given that you have some employees that work for these types of wages, what a fair minimum should or would be?

>> the fact is we have little or no inflation. i think it's a pretty good number where it's at. another factor comes in to play with commissions of sales people. we have people who are on straight commission. but yet they have to be guaranteed 1.5 times minimum wage in the offseason. which we do, obviously. but if they were to raise that minimum wage then that becomes a big number and they have a huge target to hit with their sales commissions. it again it becomes counter productive. >> do you think the increase, the potential increase in your business because people might have more disposable income might be offset by people who would hurt you because you have to pay a higher wage? >> no, i think the people who are in lower wage wages are in s that are part-time jobs. they're jobs where they're

supplementing the family income, and they're not maybe they're only working 20 to 25 weeks. i don't think there would be enough. you couldn't raise it enough to >> the human experience reveals a lot about our behavior and who we are. are you competitive? how do you deal with change? how do you deal with diversity? do you strategize? >> that and more on "real money" as we continue. keep it right here.

>> a great resumé, a great suit may not be enough to land you a good job. nowadays you may have to play a video game so they can figure out if you're a good match for what they need. these games are just the latest way businesses are using massive amounts of data to help you get the edge. >> what if playing a video game would help you get a new job. this game engages a job seeker in a seemingly innocent desk top game while it accumulates data about the personality. department of orthopedic surgery piloted the program to test whether it would be useful to

select candidates. >> we have 700 to 800 applicants a year for our 12 positions. >> reporter: faculties spend four full days interviewing the finalists. >> you would think with every person who got a position would work out wonderfully p and it doesn't always work out that way. >> reporter: it's a problem that he hopes he can solve. he's the founder and ceo of the company. >> the game is a human experience that reveals lots of information about our behavior and who we are. are you competitive. how do you deal with change? do you strategize? >> beyond insight into the candidate he believes the data his game gathers will help predict which candidates will be successful in the specific roles that they're trying to fill.

they match the seeker profiles to stop talents already working in the organization. >> the first person who comes up is the 95% match. >> reporter: they're not the only one who sees the potential in solving this problem. online dating company e-harmony is developing a an algorism that matches employers and employees, as well as design cube has designed matching talent and jobs. >> they can pinpoint which job seekers are likely to stick around longer. neil ray overseas 13,000 employees for global processer transcome. recognizing he had an attrition problem costing the company $5 million a year he turned evolve. and it compared jobs candidates

with impose have performed well over a long period of time. >> a longer tenure improves the productivity of the candidate, of the employee, and ultimately the better productivity leads to higher customer experience and satisfaction. >> reporter: there are potential down sides. >> a lot of these are mysterious. skills go on one side. and game play and out the other side comes yes, no, red light, green light, and that destroys a lot of nuance that makes hiring important. >> reporter: nyu's orthopedic department is undecided whether it will employ the application the next time it chooses new residents. >> the physicians of the future, they're very into this, and they're very adept at it, and it's part of their natural state of being. >> reporter: al jazeera, new york. >> as baby boomers retire

millennial also make up the labor force, 75%. with so many relatively inexperienced employees flooding the labor pool, this is likely to grow. what is the strangest interview question you've ever been asked? one answered why are manholes round. and "star trek" or "star wars." okay, my final thoughts come from early's twitter response, why are manhole covers round? legend has it tech companies like microsoft or google used that as a job question. it's more about creative problem solving and as an applicant approaches the question with more than one correct answer and there are several logical answers to this one. one is a round manhole cover can't full through a circular

covering. a square cover could. and a round ma manhole cover is easier to move, by rolling. and one answer was, because the hole is round? but in new hampshire manhole covers are triangle. where is all the money that is being pumped into the economy to keep interest rates low is actually going. that's next time. this is "real money." i'm ali velshi.

>> hi, i'm lisa fletcher, and you're in "the stream." enemies of the state or rebels with a cause? we look at computer hacking and what it means for civil society. >> our digital producer is here, bringing all of your live field back in the program. freedom of speech, national security. whistle blowers and criminals and you name it. >> we'll have comments on all of it. but you mentioned